The Feral Mate

Chapter 5: Amelia

Chapter 5: Amelia

Werewolves. Five total were on my island, and one was on the ship, out of reach. Their boat was the biggest I had ever seen. That meant the enterprise they ran was highly successful, so these wolves were very very dangerous. It was time to hunt.

“Everything is ready, Luna,” Carrie whispered, joining me in the tree I was perched in. I nodded and tightened the mask on my face a bit.

“Weapons?” I asked. Carrie shook her head.

“No guns. The leader is clearing brush with a machete, but I don’t know about the rest of them. It’s possible that some of them have knives, but I was too far away to see. I’m sorry I-”

“Carrie,” I interrupted, “Breathe.”

She took a few shaky deep breaths. This would only be Carrie’s second time in a real fight using her wolf. She had shifted for the first time when she turned 18, over a year before, and we had trained together every day since. Now we were a few months away from her 20th birthday, but she was still timid when it came to violent confrontation. Even in wolf form.

“Sorry, I just…I’m sorry,” she mumbled. I removed my boar skull mask so that I could look at her openly. My hand gripped her mud-caked shoulder in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture.

“We can do this. We will do this,” I said.

“We’ve never faced so many wolves at once,” she replied, taking my hand from her shoulder and squeezing.

“I took on four wolves by myself the day you arrived. I was fifteen. I’m even stronger now. You and Lea were great in the last fight. You’re stronger now too-.”

“But I’m not you, Amelia! I don’t have the bravery or the skill-,”

“ You have the heart. You care, and that makes you fierce,” I said, and meant every word. “ It makes us fierce,”. Carrie nodded, her brown eyes shiny and piercing through the black stripe painted across her face. By now, every girl in my pack would be covered head to toe in the same charcoal, herb and mud mixture. It would give us camouflage and keep our scents completely hidden from the enemy.

“Our plan has never failed us,” I continued. “ These wolves might be powerful, but they’re still out of their element. We control this island, not them,”.

Carrie nodded and stood. She tied a muck covered scarf around her face, completing her filthy ensemble. I secured my mask and began descending the tree. When I reached the bottom, I grabbed my spear. I was about to run off into the jungle, when I felt Carrie hug me from behind.

“Be careful, okay?” she said in to my shoulder. I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say. I understood Carrie’s fear. I had felt it myself, many times. That fear had shaped me into what I was. Vigilant, brutal, and cold. Carrie, however, was a bit softer. Fear shook her to her very foundations. For years I had been trying to instill in Carrie the same unfeeling ferocity I harbored within my soul. Sure, I felt like my humanity was slowly being eaten away, piece by piece. But, I was a survivor. A protector. Carrie was the only other person in our pack who had gotten her wolf. She needed to know what it took to live in a world that cared nothing about her. The survival of my pack depended on it.

However, when she showed such compassion, such concern for someone like me…I felt nothing but gratitude. She was the sole person on earth I could share my weakness with. My darker thoughts and feelings. She just…understood. So when she hugged me, I found myself doing something I never allowed my dead, black heart to do. I wished for things to be different. I wished Carrie could be the soft, sweet person she was forever. I wished the world wasn’t a ruthless, violent place that takes everything good and breaks it. Immediately, I felt the pain of stupidity. Wishes had always been about as useful to me as prayers. Carrie released me from her hug and I looked over my shoulder at her.

“I’ll see you later,” I said, and sprinted to take my position in the ambush. I decided that after the fight I would really have to start being tough on Carrie. She needed to get mean quick, so that the world wouldn’t crush her. That meant I would no longer go to her with any of my emotional problems. Not even during storms. I figured doing so would also force myself to harden any remaining softness that stubbornly clung to my insides, like cobwebs in a cave.

The intruders were trudging along a broken line on the west side of the island. They were getting slightly too close to our village for comfort, so it was time to begin luring them away. I got within 50 feet of the outsiders and scrambled up the tallest tree in the area, still out of sight. I whistled out our birdcall signal, and listened to it travel through the jungle. I counted the replies. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine. Every girl had conveyed that they were in position, ready to begin. I let out a trill indicating that we were starting.

I took a few deep breaths, and reached into my mind for Wolf. She was my strength. The only reason I had survived at all. Wolf was so powerful to the point that it frightened me. I couldn’t always tell which were my thoughts, and which were hers. She never spoke, just showed up in the form of feelings or actions. Actions always ended up with us covered in blood. I was worried Wolf would just take complete control one day and I would be gone. She muscled through any block that I tried to throw up, and sprang forward at the first sign of aggression. After the girls came to my island, I tried harder to keep Wolf restrained. However, doing so could be quite painful. For both of us. We had developed a sort of understanding, but Wolf was a hair trigger looking for any excuse to explode. She was an ache behind my eyes, or a tenseness in my shoulders telling me she was always watching, ready to push me aside.

For ambushes, however, we were a united front. A terrifying combination of intelligence and savagery. It did not take long for us to meet in the center of my mind, and gain the sharp clarity of combat that was utterly unique to us. With that, I stepped far out into the open on a steady limb and waited for my prey to spot me.